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Dec. 5th, 2007
To New Beginnings...and Friends
Dec. 5th, 2007 03:52 pmI just got back from my afternoon with Ruth and Christine.
I'm glad I dressed up a bit, because we went to a fancy restaurant for lunch. I had no idea where we were going, and at the last minute, thought better of wearing jeans and switched them out for khakis.
The restaurant? Silvester's in Sittard. We started with an aperatif, which today was a sparkling Belgian wine. We had a toast (which is where I got my subject line for this post). Then the first course came, which was 3 tiny appetizers - some pumpkin cream rolled in a sliver of carrot, a cheese croquette in mustard sauce, and a tiny glass of mashed avacado with a pureed tomato relish on top. The next course was seafood: a shrimp, a tiny piece of fish in some kind of wasabi cream sauce, and a scallop with sesame crust that came with some kind of frothy sauce. The main course was plaice, mussels, a tiny dollop of mashed potatoes, and some kind of really delicious shredded Japanese cabbage, all covered in bechemel sauce. Divine...decadent...food porn at its finest (no...I didn't get pictures, even though the food was artfully plated).
Ruth urged me to order dessert, so I got baked figs with clove ice cream and mascarpone cheese. She and Christine ordered coffee, which came with 2 good-sized trays of various little truffles and dessert bites, which they also shared with me.
All in all, a fabulous meal...what Lance would call pretentious, and perhaps he's right, but I like fine dining every now and then. This was a bunch of new and really interesting and delicious tastes for me.
We lingered there a long time. Ruth gave me a thick envelope which contained photos from several of our previous lunches together...most of them at Cafe Madrid, and one of the three of us that was taken at a castle in the Netherlands where we stopped for coffee and dessert back in June. Andrea was in some of the photos, and my favorite one has all four of us in it, and I'm going to get that framed.
On the way back from the restaurant, Christine handed me a wrapped gift and a card. The gift ended up being a copy of Philippa Gregory's The Boleyn Inheritance and I giggled, because she asked me yesterday if I had read that book and what I thought of Philippa Gregory's other books.
As excited as I am about our new home and getting to know the Pacific Northwest, I will really miss my friends here. The tears have been building for awhile, but haven't yet come. I'm thinking that I'll be having my good cry anytime now. I'm just so overwhelmed by how good and kind and thoughtful my friends are. I'm so very fortunate.
I'm glad I dressed up a bit, because we went to a fancy restaurant for lunch. I had no idea where we were going, and at the last minute, thought better of wearing jeans and switched them out for khakis.
The restaurant? Silvester's in Sittard. We started with an aperatif, which today was a sparkling Belgian wine. We had a toast (which is where I got my subject line for this post). Then the first course came, which was 3 tiny appetizers - some pumpkin cream rolled in a sliver of carrot, a cheese croquette in mustard sauce, and a tiny glass of mashed avacado with a pureed tomato relish on top. The next course was seafood: a shrimp, a tiny piece of fish in some kind of wasabi cream sauce, and a scallop with sesame crust that came with some kind of frothy sauce. The main course was plaice, mussels, a tiny dollop of mashed potatoes, and some kind of really delicious shredded Japanese cabbage, all covered in bechemel sauce. Divine...decadent...food porn at its finest (no...I didn't get pictures, even though the food was artfully plated).
Ruth urged me to order dessert, so I got baked figs with clove ice cream and mascarpone cheese. She and Christine ordered coffee, which came with 2 good-sized trays of various little truffles and dessert bites, which they also shared with me.
All in all, a fabulous meal...what Lance would call pretentious, and perhaps he's right, but I like fine dining every now and then. This was a bunch of new and really interesting and delicious tastes for me.
We lingered there a long time. Ruth gave me a thick envelope which contained photos from several of our previous lunches together...most of them at Cafe Madrid, and one of the three of us that was taken at a castle in the Netherlands where we stopped for coffee and dessert back in June. Andrea was in some of the photos, and my favorite one has all four of us in it, and I'm going to get that framed.
On the way back from the restaurant, Christine handed me a wrapped gift and a card. The gift ended up being a copy of Philippa Gregory's The Boleyn Inheritance and I giggled, because she asked me yesterday if I had read that book and what I thought of Philippa Gregory's other books.
As excited as I am about our new home and getting to know the Pacific Northwest, I will really miss my friends here. The tears have been building for awhile, but haven't yet come. I'm thinking that I'll be having my good cry anytime now. I'm just so overwhelmed by how good and kind and thoughtful my friends are. I'm so very fortunate.
